{"id":169872,"date":"2026-02-26T10:03:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/169872\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T10:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:03:30","slug":"jon-gruden-named-grand-marshal-for-firestone-grand-prix-of-st-petersburg-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/169872\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Gruden named Grand Marshal for Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Brief<\/p>\n<p>Former Tampa Bay Bucs head coach and member of the Bucs Ring of Honor, Jon Gruden, has been named Grand Marshal for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p>Gruden will be in charge of giving the iconic command for drivers to start their engines when the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season kicks off on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The iconic coach brought Tampa Bay its first-ever Lombardi Trophy in 2003.<\/p>\n<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8211; Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/nfl\/buccaneers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tampa Bay Bucs;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tampa Bay Bucs<\/a> head coach and member of the Bucs Ring of Honor, Jon Gruden, has been named Grand Marshal for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p>The man who brought <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hillsborough\/tampa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tampa Bay;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tampa Bay<\/a> its first-ever Lombardi Trophy in 2003 will give the iconic command for drivers to start their engines when the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season kicks off on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Gruden will also lead a pack of 25 cars around the 1.8-mile downtown street circuit in a parade car just before the race begins.<\/p>\n<p>With Gruden spending most of his career on the gridiron before recently taking a job with Barstool Sports, he said he&#8217;s ready for his first St. Pete Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>What they&#8217;re saying<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This will be my first ever Grand Prix in St. Petersburg on Sunday,&#8221; Gruden said. &#8220;Can\u2019t wait to see these great drivers in action and make some new friends. Looking forward to an amazing event!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/news\/firestone-grand-prix-st-petersburg-2026-heres-what-know\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg 2026: Here\u2019s what to know;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg 2026: Here\u2019s what to know<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s next<\/p>\n<p>The weekend kicks off on Thursday with the Party in the Park at North Straub Park and the annual 5K on the track.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time, the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series will hold a street race, the &#8220;OnlyBulls Green Flag 150,&#8221; on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/sports\/organizers-ready-2026-valspar-championship\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Organizers ready for 2026 Valspar Championship;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Organizers ready for 2026 Valspar Championship<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What you can do<\/p>\n<p>Tickets are still available and at last check they are going for $30. For the full schedule and race day info, click here.<\/p>\n<p>If you aren&#8217;t heading to the race, you can watch it live on FOX 13.<\/p>\n<p>The Source<\/p>\n<p>Information for this story was provided by the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief Former Tampa Bay Bucs head coach and member of the Bucs Ring of Honor, Jon Gruden,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[11558,8739,10711,16039,47376,202,204,203,199,201,200,1526,2964,19885],"class_list":{"0":"post-169872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-atlanta-falcons","9":"tag-bucs","10":"tag-jon-gruden","11":"tag-lombardi-trophy","12":"tag-ring-of-honor","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news","19":"tag-tampa-bay","20":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","21":"tag-the-bucs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}